So the NPC Comics crew just came back from seeing Green Lantern. Here are my thoughts:

First off, this isn’t a terrible movie. But what it is is a movie that reinforces something I’ve always said about how, for me, the most frustrating and angering movies are not the ones that are totally bad, but the ones that had real promise that they just didn’t manage to live up to – that ones that could have been a really good movie, if only…

So, the big problem with this one is that it tried to do way, WAY too much at once. Did someone tell Martin Campbell that no matter what happened, he wouldn’t be able to do a sequel, so he’d better shove in everything he possibly could in this one movie? It’s like he tried cramming a whole trilogy into one movie. Green Lantern 1: Hal Jordan gets the ring, trains on Oa, has relationship and job issues related to becoming GL, and then fights Hector Hammond, ending up saving (and getting) the girl in the end with Sinestro’s help. Green Lantern 2: Sinestro, who trained Hal and helped him with the Hammond fight, turns evil, and Hal has to fight him. Green Lantern 3: Hal and the Corps fight Parallax. There’s your trilogy. Why did it all have to be in one movie? There was so much going on, and so many villains to keep track of, that in some ways it came off like one of the Schumacher Batman movies (though much better in other respects, I grant you).

The performances were generally good, except for the seemingly inappropriately-named Blake Lively, who seemed to sleepwalk through the film. Mark Strong, Tem Morrison, Tim Robbins, and Peter Sarsgaard all did well, except for the jarring fact that Robbins and Skarsgard are playing father and son despite the fact that they look about ten years apart in age, tops. Ryan Reynolds did well enough, but I don’t think he was quite right for the part. That’s not to say that he was bad at all – it’s just that character and actor aren’t always a good match. Reynolds seemed right as Deadpool, but just not quite right as Jordan.

The CGI wasn’t as bad as I feared from the reviews, but was nowhere near as good as it should have been for a movie of its budget.

I’m still not sure why Moss from The IT Crowd was in this movie, but it was nice to see him anyway.

All in all it was an okay-enough-I-guess movie that could have been – should have been – much better. It showed a lack of focus and ended up going all over the place. In a way it reflects everything that’s wrong with Geoff Johns-era DC and its obsession with throwing everything from the Silver Age into a bowl, mixing it up, and hoping it comes out good. But in the end, it’s the director’s job to keep his movie focused, and Campbell just couldn’t do that.